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Saito2

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Everything posted by Saito2

  1. There's been several times Tamiya actually chased after a growing fad or market segment like the Levant trucks. T-Maxx competitors like the Terra Crusher and TNX are other examples. These types of vehicles seem to fade away into history. I'm not so sure their "failure" (from a longevity standpoint, I have no idea what Tamiya's sales numbers are) is based of the product quality or misreading the market, rather Tamiya might misread its place in the market at times. Other than Tamiya die-hards like us, most folks don't look to or consider Tamiya for these type of vehicles.
  2. My crystal ball is in the repair shop and my magic 8 ball is being uncooperative so I'm going to guess a return of the B2B Racing Sidecar and the all-to-often demanded Sonic Fighter.
  3. I have a general "reinforcement" question to piggyback off this concept, if anyone should know the answer. Is it possible, through such reinforcement, to move the point at which part failure occurs, up and out of the range of breakage forces that will be experienced (in general) by a particular RC vehicle given its size, weight and velocity it will be traveling at? Granted, there's a bunch of different ways these forces can act on a car and there's no way to account for all of them.
  4. I agree with Mark's suggestion of a Boomerang/Super Sabre or Thundershot/Dragon. Edit: Sorry! @Elbowloh said Boomerang first!
  5. I could be, but in this case, I envisioned the Rough Rider being VW powered, so we're checking valve clearances today. #3 exhaust keeps coming up tight during checks at every 3000 miles so I expect to be doing some head work shortly before she swallows a valve. Balanced the carbs with the carb sync while I was in there...
  6. Took a different style of photo (for me) today. I have some other ideas but I'm not sure how successful they'll be...
  7. The originals and 1st 2005 rereleases didn't have this problem. The poorly molded bevel gears seem to have cropped up in the first Fire Dragon rerelease (2008?), though its arms proved to be ok for me. Its the latest batch of rereleases that appears to be affected. I'm not sure how easily they fail. Mine split after a gentle love tap with a solid object while negotiating a turn. It didn't even affect the buggy's composure and if it hadn't happened right in front of me, I might have missed the moment of contact altogether.
  8. Having TT overseas to provide cheaper manufacturing muscle needed to compete is just another example of capitalism eating itself. AE's president pretty much admitted that's how things had to go if they wanted to keep going and AE had already been dealing with TT (in gas cars IIRC) before the merger so it was a natural choice. Correct.
  9. Don't get me started. I'm not going to make any friends with my fellow Americans (technically US citizens, I'm not sure all those countries in South America like being lumped in with us or not) but our choice of vehicles, in general, is poor. How many people can there be that buy Super Duty, Platinum, King Ranch, Rodeo Edition, big swing stick, quad cab, diesel dualies trucks with tow hitches that have never seen a trailer just because they have "little man syndrome"? That's an extreme example, but the domination of SUVs and the abandonment of cars by the US manufacturers is a bigger tell of our mindset. And then, we have the gall to complain about the price of our relatively cheap gas/petrol going up. People here must no longer care about superb driving dynamics and engagement because they sure love cruising around in these big uninspiring lumps of waste. To be totally transparent, I have a old used truck, probably much like Mark. It comes out when it snows (4wd) and when I need to haul something. That's less than 3000 miles a year. If it weren't for the snow, I probably wouldn't have it and just rent a truck when I needed it.
  10. I agree and hope you are correct about what (hopefully) may be coming. Every time I see a release like this clear B6, I see it as another obstacle or stumbling block delaying what most of us seem to want. Lets just pray they don't offer a perfect goldpan replica.......in 1/16th scale (looking disappointedly at you, Losi).
  11. Autism special interest in my case. My memory can literally stretch back to time in my crib and anything rotational on my Fisher Price Activity Station that was mounted on it, captivated me. Trucks grabbed my interest first. I remember clawing my way up to look over the window sill when the trash truck stopped by and being particularly interested in the rotational speed differences between the highly visible driveshaft (not that I knew what that was back then) and the truck's wheels. Every toy I had, whether Tonka, Matchbox or Hot Wheels was car based. If it didn't have wheels, I didn't care. As a teenager, I threw away my plans for a bachelors in Psychology, went to a tech college and buried myself in the world of classic car restoration while usually having as many as 10 cars of my own at home (and a fleet of Tamiyas). At 37, two years after the birth of my daughter, something broke inside me. I had literally thrown my life away in servitude of automobiles and all I had was a bad back and two blown out knees to show for it. A scary moment where two morons doing burnouts at a big car show nearly took out a crowd of a dozen people or more cemented it. Becoming a parent changes you. I still love cars (just not car "culture") but the world of Tamiya is a lot easier on the wallet and the body! lol.
  12. The Supershot is my favorite despites its foibles simply because it represented the ultimate BITD, a Hotshot with every hop-up Tamiya made. Since these hop-ups are added onto the base Hotshot structure, they weren't exactly integrated. Tamiya did a clever job designing brackets that attached to the existing Hotshot chassis to mount the shocks (the whole suspension was available separately to Hotshot owners looking to upgrade). Full ball bearings was a real mind-blower back then with the prices bearings used to sell for. Plus, you got an under guard, pin spike tires that looked like they shred skin, a Technipower motor and flashy gold wheels, oh, and a roof scoop. The front shocks do lack travel though and they bottom out before the chassis. I rectified this by using newer CVA2 shocks which lack the internal rod guides but have more travel: All personal feelings aside, the Boomerang represents a good performer at a good price, I just have a personal preference for the more "solid" feeling Hotshots. The one car missing from the discussion, and sadly no longer available, is the Bigwig, which, in many ways, was Tamiya's attempt at the ultimate iteration of the chassis line, supplanting the Supershot. Of course all of these early cars' performance was eclipsed by the Thundershot series.
  13. I would pick the Hotshot 2, non-Blockhead though (purely based on my love of the original's looks) I like the looks of the Hotshot cars with their roll cages and minimalistic bodies. The HS2 features a durable, rigid, boxed chassis overlaid with a roll cage. The bodies suffer less damage in rollovers. The downside is radio gear access is limited without disassembly Whoever designed the Hotshots probably did the Fox too BITD, lol. I find this less of an issue with today's common use of ESCs. The HS2 has proper monoshock geometry like the Boomer and Super Sabre but not like the original Hotshot's somewhat flawed design. The rear features a more integrated suspension layout unlike the "tacked-on" shocks on the Supershot. The steering uses direct rods and while it doesn't bind, it suffers from bumpsteer and a wider turning arc. They are a more involved old school build. The Boomerang and Super Sabre are functionally identical (ok, the Boomer's rear shocks are a bit longer). They feature an open tub design that is not a rigid as the HS2's but offer better radio gear access. I'm not crazy about the battery door on these as it ties the lower chassis together while relying on two relatively small molded-in plastic hooks at the door's rear as its means of support. The suspension is sorted like the HS2's. The steering uses a sliding bar that cut out the bumpsteer and reduces understeer. Its only flaw is the slider can jam with debris and thus must be kept clean. Booomers were cheaper, lighter and better performing than the original Hotshots making them popular BITD. I prefer the Super Sabre as it was my late father's favorite Tamiya and its wing doesn't get ripped off as easy in rollovers like the Boomer's eventually does. The Boomerang, Super Sabre and Hotshot 2 all share the same basic drivetrain and ball-jointed front suspension. The Hotshot series are some of my favorites but they are old-school and I'm not shooting for max performance (who would be with a Tamiya re-re nowadays anyway?). The Thundershot series is lighter and far more streamlined in its design. The re-re gears suffer from molding issues now that must be filed/trimmed, but overall the gearboxes are more efficient, as is the whole buggy. The blue nylon arms in the newest rereleases seem to be splitting on impacts at the inner hinge pin for some folks (me included). They were the last of the high clearance, rough terrain capable buggies and probably had an advantage in competition in this respect. Unfortunately this was out of step with the times as rougher tracks of old were going away by then. Unlike the earlier cars, Thundershots suffer from oversteer if anything. Aside from the A5 part (which have many fixes now), they are pretty robust buggies. Indeed, the drivetrain on all the buggies you listed are reasonably tough.
  14. I figured a Novafox thread should have a pic of an actual Novafox in it... I never had an issue with my original Fox BITD. It was one of the better Tamiya gearboxes back then without the problems of the ORVs or FAV/Wild Ones. The early cars had preassembled hex half shafts that wore out because folks neglected to peel back the boots and lube them though that went away after Tamiya started lubing them from the factory but I digress... As they aged, the arms would crack, probably from initial cold screw pin insertion. Then again, we drove them like the plastic Tamiyas that they were back then. It didn't have RC10 durabiltiy. The hottest motor Tamiya ever expected in one was probably the Technigold. I remember its "dustproof" closed chassis being a nightmare for crystal changes, lol. My current Novafox runs a Torque Tuned and and has been trouble-free. Then again, I probably still drive with care like I did back then (cars seemed/were so much more expensive back then). I'm not insinuating anybody is driving their's incorrectly. That's just been my experience and your mileage may vary. Clearly, something is up with these re-re gearboxes however. Perhaps mold wear is creeping in, causing problems with some folks cars.
  15. http://www.tamiyaclub.com/article.asp?id=44 There's a surprising amount of differences between the two versions. I believe the Wild Willy may have been altered to bring it more in line with the Audi Quattro and Opel Ascona that followed it and were based on modified versions of the Wild Willy's architecture. The upshot was it made Willy more stable, although, from an appearance perspective, I still prefer the SWB version. Perhaps someday I will add a SWB to the two LWB versions in the collection but I'll probably have to part with a lot of models to afford it .
  16. $200 shipped in the continental US or $175 plus shipping, whichever is cheaper.
  17. I always thought it should have a cape or something to be "super". Seriously, after seeing what Tamiya was willing to slap the Avante name on (granted these earlier offerings have their roots in Mini 4wd culture), the TD4 was probably the least egregious in execution (even if I fid the DF03 version's body less offensive). I just try to get over the "name" part of it and look at what the chassis has to offer. I agree with your gut feeling though. Things don't seem overly promising for the TD4. Agreed. I found my Vanquish to be quite effective BITD. It just didn't have presence of the higher end better materials. Not being overly concerned with such trivialities nowadays, I would go for the VQS if the price wasn't so high. Good point. My thoughts are similar on 1:1 cars. We got a rental car this year for a trip and I hated the touch screen. I despise the growing lack of "mechanical-ness" in 1:1 cars. Touch screens instead of buttons, no manual transmissions, gauges that aren't "physically" there, nannies and nursemaids getting in the way of connecting to the machine. Thank you all. Egress it is!
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